Kim Cattrall is to star in an “engrossing” new BBC Radio 4 drama about one of the most powerful women in the CIA.
Central Intelligence will also star Ed Harris and Johnny Flynn and follow the true story of CIA officer Eloise Page, played by Cattrall, who joined the agency on its first day in 1947.
She became one of the male-dominated agency’s most powerful leaders, and the 10-part series will examine her relationships with early CIA leaders Allen Dulles, played by Harris, and Richard Helms, played by Flynn.
Speaking about her role in the drama, Cattrall said: “I was pleased to be asked to join BBC Radio 4’s Central Intelligence.
“A very well-written, factual and entertaining history of the Central Intelligence Agency from its uncertain inception.
“A human story full of false starts, gaffes, blunders, and thankfully triumphs on the world stage.
“A thrilling story of Russian roulette.
“I was engrossed learning the true story of how this vital agency grew and prospered before and during the Cold War.”
Cattrall made her name in the US TV series Sex And The City, in which she played Samantha Jones, and has also starred in films including Police Academy, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and Big Trouble In Little China.
The series promises to offer listeners a chance to be a fly-on-the-wall for the heated debates and decisions at the CIA that shaped world history, and continue to have ramifications in the present day.
Producers say Page’s story will be told with the “polite but sharp, brutally honest”, questioning mind she was famous for, in an organisation that was long run by a “male, pale and Yale” hierarchy of men.
They said Page is a “compelling witness to the ambitions, values, strengths and weaknesses” of a string of early CIA leaders whose decisions – good and bad – have shaped the world we live in.
The first episode will air on Saturday, September 13, as part of the BBC’s Limelight podcast feed.
Other commissions announced by the BBC include a new adaptation of King Lear starring Richard Wilson, a new dramatisation of Charles Dickens’ Hard Times, and an original drama called Breaking The Rules: A House Called Insanity, starring Anne-Marie Duff.
